150 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



which a great deal of work and a great deal of thought and 

 care were expended, and we have learned nothing. The vari- 

 ations between the different plots with the different propor- 

 tions of nitrogen have been so small, that, in view of the fact 

 that the effect of the drought was different on the different 

 plots, and in view of the fact that the different plots might 

 have been of such different degrees of natural fertility as 

 would account for all the ascertained difference in the crops, 

 I should not be justified in saying that I have learned any- 

 thing. I only say in relation to this series of experiments, 

 that they have been carefully tried, the record has been care- 

 fully and correctly made, and it may require ten years of just 

 such labor and just such experiments to learn that we are on 

 a wild-goose chase, and never shall find out anything, or learn 

 anything valuable that we can apply practically. 



The plots with which we have experimented in previous 

 years have been experimented with this year. It is a matter 

 of no great interest, but I will give the result of those experi- 

 ments, and draw my conclusions. 



A plot of land which has been previously described — drift- 

 soil, full of round, water-worn stone — was planted in 1874, and 

 manured with chemical fertilizers, to produce fifty bushels of 

 corn to the acre above the natural yield. This, I say, was in 

 1874, the year spoken of, when we had twenty-six inches 

 of rain and an average temperature of sixty-five degrees. 

 Judging by a plot planted without manure, we called the 

 normal fertility of the land capable of producing thirty-four 

 bushels of corn to the acre. That was its product that year. 

 The plot to which the manure was applied produced that year 

 eighty-three bushels. In 1875, the same application was 

 made, and the manured plot produced seventy-four bushels ; 

 the unmanured plot, twenty-five bushels. In 187(5, the same 

 plot of land, manured in the same way, produced forty-eight 

 bushels ; the unmanured plot, nothing, — or, I have it here, 

 two bushels of corn. I may as well say nothing. I lay that 

 to the dry weather. I think the unmanured plot would have 

 produced, from its natural fertility, a little corn this year, but 

 of course everything was burned up by the dry weather. 

 The potato plot, in 1874, manured with material for one hun- 

 dred bushels of potatoes more than the natural yield, gave 



